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Monday, October 7, 2013

Caddy Shack

Okay, the better term would be caddy garage because I built these two caddies for my wife in the garage but I couldn't resist the title. I'm not sure if Bill Murray or the groundhog would approve but oh well.

My wife has some plastic caddies in her office that she uses for various supplies that she needs to take with her from time to time. They are one size fits all things and didn't look very attractive. I on the other hand was canning a lot of stuff and needed something that I could take small breaks to work on in the garage. So the idea of building my wife some custom caddies was born.

She laid out the approximate overall size and location of various compartments and I came up with a design to put it all together. I've had some leftover walnut from a previous project years and years ago that I've been hauling around for some time and decided that the time to use it had arrived. It wasn't enough for both boxes so I had to buy a little more. I used it to create the four sides and the new stuff I bought to build the center divider with the handle. The thin dividers and the box bottoms I built out of some leftover plywood I had from my built-in book case project. All in all, I had about $20 worth of wood and finish in this project.

I used dovetail construction for the box for strong joints. I made a simple jig and my dado blade on my table saw to create them. I made a jewelry box a few years ago using a different jig but the same technique and though it turned out alright, I learned some things to do differently. This jig worked well and I have it saved for future use in other projects. All told I probably have about 10 hours of time invested in those two boxes spread out over a week.